Portage fire station to close during daytime hours under modified emergency response plan

Kalamazoo Gazette fileThe Portage Department of Public Safety is closing one of its three fire stations during daytime hours under a modified emergency response model that took effect Friday. The plan is being piloted for the next six months.

PORTAGE, MI – The Portage Department of Public Safety has decided to close one of its three fire stations during daytime hours as part of a modified emergency response model that took effect Friday.

The plan, which is being piloted for the next six months, is meant “to provide more efficient and effective emergency service response,” Public Safety Director Richard White said in a news release issued Friday.

Under the plan, the Public Safety Department is closing its fire station No. 3 at 8503 S. Sprinkle Road from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then fully staffing the station between the hours of 5 p.m. and 8 a.m.

The agency also is discontinuing the use of fire engines to respond to medical-emergency calls and instead will begin using two “specially equipped SUVs” that will be housed at fire station No. 1 at 7830 Shaver Road and fire station No. 2 at 6101 Oakland Drive.

Officials said the plan to close station No. 3 during daytime hours came after a review of fire department response statistics from “the past several years” that showed 77 percent of all calls to the fire department were responded to from station No. 1 and station No. 2.

The review also revealed that more than 64 percent of all calls for service to the fire department are for medical emergencies, that the majority of calls occur during the daytime hours and that only 3 percent of calls are “related to actual fires,” officials said in the news release.

Officials said staff who normally work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at station No. 3 will staff the two rescue SUVs and will also be moved to station No. 1 along with fire apparatus from station No. 3.

“The revised emergency response model will be evaluated at the end of the six-month period and a decision to continue or discontinue the program will be made at that time,” officials said in the news release.